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Leaders in Britain Tackle Radicalization

LONDON — Two men accused of hacking an off-duty British soldier to death on a south London street last month appeared in separate courts for hearings on Monday as politicians met to seek ways of thwarting what the government has termed the “poisonous narrative” of militant Islamic radicalization.

The men, Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, both of Nigerian descent, face murder charges in the May 22 death of the soldier, Lee Rigby, 25, a military drummer and machine-gunner who had served with British forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere. After the soldier’s killing, both suspects were shot and wounded by the police.

Mr. Adebowale was formally charged with murder last week, and Mr. Adebolajo appeared in a magistrate’s court on Monday to be formally arraigned.

He was also charged with other offenses, including the attempted murder of two police officers and possession of a revolver, identified as a 9.4-millimeter KNIL model 91. Weapons experts said the revolver was a large-bore antique first manufactured in the Netherlands in the late 19th century.

The police have said the weapons used in the killing included a meat cleaver.

According to reporters in the Westminster Magistrates Court, Mr. Adebolajo, whose family had said he converted from Christianity to Islam in his late teens, was wearing a white T-shirt and blew a kiss to an unidentified man in the public gallery. Both then pointed to the sky.

His left arm was bandaged and held a copy of the Koran. As is customary in a British court, he was asked to stand to face the charges and replied, “May I ask why? May I ask why?”

“I want to sit,” he said, according to an account of the proceeding by The Press Association, Britain’s domestic news agency. Mr. Adebolajo finally rose to his feet, but at the end of the brief hearing he asked the magistrate, Emma Arbuthnot, “I would like to alleviate the pain if I may?”

He kissed the Koran and raised his arm into the air. Mr. Adebolajo was ordered to appear at a higher court within 48 hours.

Mr. Adebowale appeared via video link at the Old Bailey criminal court from the Belmarsh Prison in south London, and was told a further preliminary hearing would be held on June 28, when the cases against both men would be heard together. He did not seek bail, news reports said.

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The court proceedings came after a weekend in which crowds added floral tributes to the thousands of bouquets left by well-wishers in the Woolwich neighborhood where Mr. Rigby was killed in full view of passers-by as he returned to an army barracks wearing a T-shirt with the name of a military charity.

While some mourned, others protested, and violent clashes broke out near the Parliaments in London and Edinburgh between rightists demonstrating against Islamic militancy and others promoting tolerance. In other cities, extreme rightists confronted campaigners opposed to racism and fascism. Scores of people were arrested.

After the May 22 attack, Prime Minister David Cameron established a panel of senior politicians and law enforcement officers that held its first exploratory meeting on Monday before the prime minister addressed Parliament. The group is to focus on ways of combating the radicalization of young people and to gauge the influence of clerics seeking to recruit militants. Government officials said it would meet once a month.

In a statement on Monday to the House of Commons, Mr. Cameron described the killing of Mr. Rigby as “a despicable attack on a soldier who stood for our country and way of life,” but cautioned against any recriminations against Muslims in Britain. “It was a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country,” he said, saluting the “spontaneous condemnation” of the attack from mosques and Muslim groups.

The prime minister also spoke, at least indirectly, against any haste to condemn the country’s security services, including MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, and the counterterrorist command of Scotland Yard, whose officials have acknowledged that the men charged in the killing had been on extremist watch lists for years, but had been judged not to pose any significant risk.

Mr. Cameron said that any conclusions about the security services’ role would have to await the findings of an inquiry by a parliamentary group, the Intelligence and Security Committee, with powers to summon top security officials to testify in closed hearings, which he said would report by the end of the year.

Working through a checklist of all that had been done to combat Islamic terrorism, Mr. Cameron said that there had been three major terrorist trials already this year, with 18 plotters found guilty and sentenced to a total of 150 years in prison. He said the government had “excluded more preachers of hate from this country than ever before” since it took power in 2010, and had acted to close militant Web sites featuring 5,700 “items of terrorist material.”

“But it is clear we need to do more,” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on June 4, 2013, on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Leaders in Britain Tackle Radicalization. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe